Bandsaw's bite

No matter how careful you think you are, when you feel the thunk of the blade as it catches on the bone means it’s too late. I reached to brush away a cutoff and got my thumb snagged in the blade. With my wife’s assistance I got it bandaged up, and then sat around all afternoon holding my hand up to relieve the pounding in my thumb. Three Ibuprofen and 30 minutes later I had relief.

Oh my but you are lucky to still have that thumb. 15 years ago I shut down the table saw and reached over to flick away a cutoff. It took a lot of stitches. The worst part was that Ii was in the middle of carving a saddle and had to use that thumb to run the swivel knife and all those little tools. I’ve never forgotten and I’ll bet you won’t either. good luck.

I did something pretty similar yesterday – jabbed a chisel into my hand pretty deep! The hand was never intended to be used as a clamp – but silly me! You’re definitely not alone! i went in for a tetanus shot because of the depth of the wound – would suggest the same depending on how deep your cut is and when you had it last…

I had a real close call last year with my table saw. I was tired and it was the last piece of board I was ripping when my finger got a little to close to the blade. I was lucky as the finger of the glove I was wearing (I ALWAYS wear tight fitting mechanics type gloves when working with wood) caught the blade first and gave me a serious wake up call.

Sorry for the cut, I hope you heal quickly. I put 2 fingers into a 1/2 bit on a router table a few weeks back so I feel your pain. Makes you feel like a real dumb a@& doesn’t it! Welcome to the club and thanks for posting, we can only hope that our pain can teach others to avoid such incidents.

-- Dan in Central Oklahoma, Able to turn good wood into saw dust in the blink of an eye!

I like Bob’s analogy to the cobra. I’m so afraid of slicing something off that everytime I start something up I think through all the motions and try to not stray. I resist the urge to brush away pieces. Even that is a slow methodical process for me. I’ll still probably slip someday.

I agree with Bob. I try to be real scared so to be real careful, especially around the table saw. Too many not near misses and close calls on kickback to not be worried.Close friends have pared off pieces of their fingers on the jointer and router.Next to the jig saw I thought the bandsaw was the safest power tool in the shop. Wrong, again.

The bandsaw can fool you. My own “interaction” came when doing a freehand rip on fairly thick stock. The problem was that I hadn’t planned on where the blade would exit the wood at the rear, and had my hand in the way. A little nick to the top of my left index finger cost me a trip to the ER for a tendon repair. This was followed by six weeks with the finger in a brace “pointing the way” for all to see.

I think the best thing to do is to go ahead & put a sign on the injured member for folks to read rather than have to explain what happened over and over and over. I guess they’d just ask anyway.

Better yet, let’s just avoid the whole thing if possible.

I tell people that I learn from my mistakes, but the problem is that there are so many different mistakes out there to make…

I had a learning experience when using the bandsaw with a paper pattern. The pattern was drawn on the paper and I used spray adhesive to attach it to the wood. I did not trim off the excess paper around the pattern and as I was nearing an outside edge of the pattern the blade popped out of the side of the wood and caught the ends of two of my fingers. A little blood but no bone. Now I trim my patterns down to size.

Good thing I’ve been toughening my finger tips on the belt sander all these years.

-- Leon -- Houston, TX - " I create all my own designs and it looks like it "